Irey's Hysterical 'Call to Action' Against Murtha

By Bob Geiger

Although I spend the majority of my time covering the United States Senate, I'm not sure many of this year's 33 Senate races will achieve quite the same slime factor as we can expect out of the crew trying to upset Congressman John Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th district.

And attempts to smear Murtha, distort his record and, amazingly, try to minimize the courage and guts of a highly-decorated Veteran, who served 37 years in the Marine Corps, have already begun.

His opponent is little-known Republican Diana Irey, a Washington County Commissioner who appears to now specialize in attacking Murtha's patriotism and Iraq-war stance despite -- and don't you just know this one is coming? -- having never served in the military herself.

Jason Davidek, a former staffer to Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and now Irey's campaign manager, sent out a doozy of an e-mail to supporters yesterday bashing Murtha and begging for cash.

"Thanks to your support and the support of thousands of people like you, we've got Jack Murtha on the run," begins the oozy transmission.

"Jack Murtha has become the principal cheerleader for the Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan crowd," Davidek's e-mail continues. "While other liberals are content to urge a policy of cut and run, Jack Murtha wants us to cut and sprint!"

He also takes time to brag that "Diana's been doing national television and radio all over the place" and boasts about three -- count 'em! -- appearances on the FOX News Channel and an intimate hour in the studio with Mike Gallagher, a right-wing radio host.

If Gallagher's name sounds familiar, it's because he was the guy who spent last summer leading a band of troglodytes to Crawford Texas to harass Cindy Sheehan during her vigil at President Bush's ranch.

Heck of a crowd Murtha's opponent is running with, huh?

The e-mail donation request goes on to gush that "Mike even did something he's never done before -- he actually endorsed Diana for Congress right on the air!"

There's a shocker. Irey's lucky that David Duke didn’t relocate to Pennsylvania to run for Murtha's seat or it would have been tougher to get the coveted Gallagher endorsement.

I guess to end the missive on a humorous note, the campaign brags that the Murtha/Irey race has been moved up on the list of competitive races by Bob Novak who, despite having outed a covert CIA agent, they describe as "…one of the most respected political reporters on the planet."

None of this should come as a surprise from a campaign that, just days ago, posted a statement on their web site decrying the New York Times reporting of the Bush administration snooping Americans' financial records and asked Murtha "Did you or did you not urge senior officials of the New York Times not to publish the offensive article?"

Watch for much more of this in the next four months and, if you would like to help the Murtha campaign wash some of this slime away, please visit his web site and make a donation.

You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com